Phew, for a second there, I thought you were making a Nazi joke about Lutherans and their German heritage...
Anyway, I'm 'receiving' this information from the same passages of Scripture I have consistently quoted. For everyone's benefit, I will post them in full.
Mark 16:16: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
Obviously, this verse leaves ambiguity for those that 1. only believe by confession of mouth, and 2. have been baptized but cannot confess their belief.
Again, I'm not suggesting that baptism is necessary for salvation. But those who merely believe have no assurance, for their belief rests upon an invisible act of grace (if you're Lutheran or Reformed) or an invisible act of will (if you're Arminian, Catholic, or Orthodox). But this verse shows that baptism actually adds something to the person; a person who both believes and is baptized can be assured of their salvation?
Why? Let us turn to the other passages.
Romans 6:3-4: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
This is not the 'inward sign of an outward faith' that Baptistic Christians so often talk about. The baptism of which Paul speaks in not an act accomplished by the recipient of baptism, but an act of Christ in the church that renews and transforms the believer.
Look at the actual words, instead of assigning your own meaning to them based on your already-held belief on baptism. Paul writes as through baptism actually does something- baptism is what actually unites us to Christ in his death and resurrection.
I'm not saying that grace alone does not justify us, nor that justification does not occur solely through faith. But the passage clearly speaks of baptism as actually performed the unitive act between the recipient as Christ.
What am I to conclude, then, as a firm believer in sola fide, but that baptism is a visible means by which God exercises his divine grace?
Galatians 3:27-29: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christs, then you are Abrahams offspring, heirs according to promise.
This, of course, is not about regeneration. But it is about baptismal adoption. This verse speaks in beautiful prose about how, through baptism, the believer because a child of Abraham through Christ (by being united to Christ as per Rom 6:4, above), and thus a child of God.
Is this not grace? Does this not show that baptism is a means through which God pours out his grace on his children?
Now here's a tricky one:
Acts 2:38-39: And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."
Everybody on each side of the divide loves this verse. On the one hand, it seems a sure place to cling onto the doctrine of infant baptism. On the other hand, it also seems to be a great way to show that baptism should come after repentance, and that it, like repentance, is an act of the person in question.
Yet first of all, I don't think the biblical view of repentance paints penitance as an act of a person's will. Rather, it is a (quite natural) passive reaction to the fear and guilt generated by the Law's (or conscience's) conviction in our lives.
Second, nothing in the passage seems to indicate that however we view repentance, we must view baptism in a similar light. Is it inconceivable that one be an act of human will, where the other be an act of God's?
Third, however we view either baptism or repentance, it remains nevertheless the case that baptism is instrumental in the receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Whether one thinks that the gift of the Holy Spirit is salvation or the gift is the Holy Spirit himself (I've seen both interpretations in serious Bible commentaries); in either case, it certainly teaches that baptism, when combined with repentance, brings the believer into a renewed and transformed state.
1 Peter 3:20-21: ...in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ...
Like the passage in Acts 2, this seems like it could go both ways. This is the most express statement that baptism saves us, for it actually says that, but the text goes on to talk about the difference between the removal of dirt from the body vs. the appeal of a good conscience before God.
So really, it comes down to whether this passage speaks of water baptism or not.
I submit, first of all, that there is no other baptism besides water baptism, and that the 'spiritual baptism' of which Baptistic folks sometimes speak is a construction pulled out of the text unknown to the early church.
Of course, John the Baptism spoke of the later baptism of people with the Spirit, but A. nothing in the texts suggest that the Spirit arrives in the person without corresponding physical sign of water and B. Ephesians 4:5 explicitly states that there is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism."
Perhaps the Spirit may come upon a person in power to effect salvation in their lives at a time other than their water baptism; but, and this is the important point I'm trying to make, without the water baptism, neither the person in question nor the church as a whole has any visible, objective sign that assures of the work of the Spirit.
Moreover, in order to accept the Baptistic interpretation of 1 Peter, we have to believe that the apostle was reacting against some form of belief in baptismal regeneration; but it is much more reasonable to conclude that he was speaking against other kinds of washing that were merely of a material nature, like the mikvah rituals of the Jewish people or the baptism of John. Peter is not saying the baptism that saves us is merely of the Spirit, but precisely the opposite- he is saying that the water baptism that saves us is not merely of water, but of the Spirit, too.
See above.
Hi, well what helps me is just believing that God never gives up on us..when I'm going through a rough time spiritually I try to just turn to Him and say "Jesus I trust in You and I know You won't give up on me". I'm not great at this but it works for me 
